Incoming Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts to be named Dame of the British Empire

As she prepares for her new role as head of retail operations at Apple, outgoing Burberry Chief Executive Angela Ahrendts will be honored with another distinction: She's set to be named a Dame of the British Empire.

Angela Ahrendts will become Apple's SVP of Retail and Online Stores in 2014. | Source: The Times UK

Ahrendts will be joined by Melinda Gates, philanthropist and wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The honor will be bestowed upon both women in the coming weeks, according toVogue.

The title of dame is the female equivalent of knighthood, or being named a "sir," in the U.K. Damehood for a non-British national is said to be approved by the Queen, but is not awarded by a member of the royal family.

Apple hired Ahrendts last October to take overits retail operations with the new title of Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores. She won't take that position until this spring, as she is wrapping up her duties at Burberry.

The 53-year-old Ahrendts, born in Indiana, has spent most of her professional career in the fashion industry. In 2006 she was named CEO of Burberry, a luxury British brand established in 1856 that today has 11,000 employees.

I think it's funny you think she can convince you to buy a $900 jacket. Cook got me to buy a $1800 computer.

So Apple has a Dame and a Sir. Tim wishes he was British.

not joking. Apple is entering a new era that needs a CEO with vision and mojo. Something Cook is missing.

If Cook had vision he would have clearly seen the need for a larger screen phone. Bad enough he didn't see the change coming but worse he FAILED to adjust once Samsung brought out the Galaxy S2. Its taking Apple THREE FRIKEN YEARS to finally respond and bring out a bigger phone. What a joke. If they were proactive and brought out the big phone earlier they would have sold 75M phones this quarter.

Cook is great at manufactering but we need someone who can perceive what the customer wants BEFORE the customer knows it himself. The larger iPhone, ipad mini were both products the MARKET told Apple to make and then they made it. Thats the opposite of what Steve Jobs did when he ANTICIPATED the demand for iPod and the original iPhone/iPad.

not joking. Apple is entering a new era that needs a CEO with vision and mojo. Something Cook is missing.

If Cook had vision he would have clearly seen the need for a larger screen phone. Bad enough he didn't see the change coming but worse he FAILED to adjust once Samsung brought out the Galaxy S2. Its taking Apple THREE FRIKEN YEARS to finally respond and bring out a bigger phone. What a joke. If they were proactive and brought out the big phone earlier they would have sold 75M phones this quarter.

Cook is great at manufactering but we need someone who can perceive what the customer wants BEFORE the customer knows it himself. The larger iPhone, ipad mini were both products the MARKET told Apple to make and then they made it. Thats the opposite of what Steve Jobs did when he ANTICIPATED the demand for iPod and the original iPhone/iPad.

Keep Cook as CO-CEO for operations.
Make Musk Chairman of the Board (Tesla CEO)
Make Ahrendts CO-CEO for products/marketing

When did Steve Jobs anticipate the demand for a smaller iPad and larger phone? There is a pipeline for products, they don't just happen overnight. Cook can't just snap his fingers and say make me a bigger phone. Also, it was Eddy Cue who had to convince Steve that Apple should do a smaller iPad. And don't forget Steve didn't want to bring the iPod to Windows, he didn't originally support an App Store on the iPhone. This idea that Steve always knew what customers wanted before they knew it themselves is just pure RDF.

Seems to me you're just overreacting to the AAPL sell off. What does Angela Ahrendts know better about products Apple should be working on than the current crop of executives. She hasn't even started there yet and you're already anointing her the next Steve Jobs. That's ridiculous. And if you think Cook should go back to Operations than he should be COO, not co-CEO. Obviously there's a reason Steve chose him to be CEO. I think its a little early to be throwing him under the bus. If we come to the end of the year and there are no new products from Apple, or the ones we get flop, then we can talk about replacing Cook.

Ahrendts is still unproven in an Apple context and she is not know for her public presentations, but to get a woman with 'mojo' to present and 'sell' Apple would be good, in theory. TC is great but a little yawn inducing.